Spring Cleaning!

Sorry I have been offline for a few days. My oldest son had a 'bout with strep throat, that looked more like meningitis in the beginning...Thank goodness it was the former. Nothing like a good medical scare to keep the wine companies in business! Sometimes the general craziness that goes with being a freelancer and mother of three makes it hard to post regularly! I'm thinking that I might make a weekly post on one particular day. I just have to see which day will work the best.

So, here comes another idea to do over the Spring Vacation with the kiddies. The activity not only gets your children categorizing, an extremely important skill for math, science and reading, it also fits in perfectly with the idea of Spring Cleaning! How great is that?

I know that I have tons of toys with little itty bitty pieces that are lost throughout my home, I'm guessing that you do too. Vacation is a good time to start finding those pieces and getting them categorized. You can use clear storage bags, clear boxes or draws, develop sections for "like objects" in their room or better yet, give them away or throw them out! Your main objective, what goes with what? And get it labeled with an index card, sticky mailing label and a Sharpie pen. It is not necessary or possible to do an entire room or organize every group of toys. Take on a new group of toys daily and go slow. Discuss why certain objects might go together. By doing this children take ownership and can help make a sustainable system of organizing their rooms and hopefully, their lives. Some children will naturally be able put together that like objects such as, super hero accessories, barbie doll/princess shoes and clothes, animals, legos/mega blocks etc. are types of categories. Other children may need some gentle guidance. The work is in the discussion. Ask "What is similar (a good vocabulary word, make sure you define it) about these objects?" "How can you use them together?" modeling is a very effective technique. you can say "What I might do is...". I personally, tend to make categories without regard to the make of the toy, in other words Fisher Price animals go with other small figures of animals. Older children can even be encouraged to organize their home libraries by fiction, non fiction or informational texts such as dictionaries. The more you get your children involved in the process the more they will learn.

You might try to do this activity for about 20 minutes or so, each day of the vacation. I get excited just thinking about how much cleaner my home might look as well as the toys we might get rid of! Good luck!